Easy stuff for beginners, Guitar in general, MK guitar style and licks

Mark Knopfler licks on an acoustic – How to practice electric guitar on your acoustic

(At the end of this article you will find a matching video for all who prefer watching to reading)

An acoustic guitar has normally heavier strings than an electric guitar because you want a loud and rich sound. With an electric guitar you don’t need that much volume because you can adjust the sound easily with the amp. Consequently playing the acoustic requires more strength and finger pressure, and some techniques like string bending are much more difficult or – e.g. on the wound g string – not really possible.

At home I normally play acoustic guitars the way they are supposed to, fingerpicking or strumming with heavy string. For that lead stuff I take an electric guitar which I often play without amp at home. While this is loud enough for practicing in most situations , it surely wouldn’t hurt if it was louder, like an ‘acoustic’ electric guitar so to say (I have friends who favour semi-acoustics like the Gibson 335 for this reason).

One day I found another, even better solution: I took an acoustic and simply put really light strings on it. This way I can play it like an electric guitar. One the other hand, the warm sound of a an acoustic has also to do with the different kind of strings used on them – normally bronze or phosphor wound. And these are not available in thin, electric-guitar like gauges of course. No problem, I take a normal set for acoustic guitar (like a 012 – 056) but I use a thin 09 string for the high e-string (the unwound strings are the same material for electric and acoustic guitars anyway). Then I use the e-string of that set for the b-string, the b-strings for the g-string, and so on. The low e-string is left over. So, if your set is e.g. 12, 16, 22w, 32, 42, 56, this will result in 09, 012, 16, 22w, 32, 42 – pretty much a standard gauge for electric guitars but in bronze or phosphor-bronze.

I recommend to relief the truss-rod of that guitar a bit to match the lower string tension. The Martin DXK2 I use for this purpose (a rather cheap Martin model) sounds of course different than it did before but still sounds great for all kind of stuff and plays like an electric, great for practicing. Something to try out – I love it.

Here is the video for this article:

Mark Knopfler gear

How to get that Sultans of Swing Sound – Mark Knopfler played 08 strings?

It cannot be answered with 100% certainty which string gauge or brand Mark Knopfler played on e.g. the first Dire Straits album or on Communique. There were a few interviews with major guitar magazines, but unfortunately none of these asked for strings.

For a long time the earliest information was from the Making Movies tour book which listed Fender Extra Lights for this tour. However, this was late 1980 and Knopfler meanwhile had changed to a different guitar (Schecters instead of vintage Fenders) and completely different gear (e.g. all that rack stuff).

Fender Extra Lights were pure nickel strings with gauges 09, 11, 15, 24, 32, 40 (they have different gauges these days: 16 instead of 15, 42 instead of 40 !). On the next tour he also played 09ers (Deam Markley Custom Light: 09,011,016,026,036,046) so it seemed he was a 09-player in all those years.

It was only a few years ago that I bought a guitar magazine from 1980 with Knopfler and his red Strat on the front cover on ebay. This was Musician from July 1980.

Besides the rather informative interview there was an info box about Mark Knopfler’s gear on the last page of the interview which lists guitars (e.g. his brand new Schecters) and amps/effects (still the old stuff from the Communique tour, mind the interview was before the Making Movies tour), and it said which strings he played, and these were not 09ers as assumed, but …

Fender Super Lights

Fender Super Lights was a 08 set (08, 11, 14, 22, 32, 38), also pure nickel. Of course the magazine does not say explicitely that these were used on any of the first CDs or on the first tours, but nevertheless, it is the earliest available information.

I myself had started to use thinner strings on most of my Strats since a few years before because I had the feeling they make some particular licks sound more like those old Dire Straits sound, also Fender and almost the same gauges as the Super Lights (only difference: I favour a 09 instead of 08 for the high e string), so I can indeed say that to me 08 sounds pretty good.

There is still the saying that big strings give you a big sound, so people like Stevie Ray Vaughn favoured extremely heavy strings, and also Knopfler seems to have gone more and more towards heavier strings over the decades. However, to me that Sultans sound is still one of the best I have ever heard and absolutely unique, so why not using a rather exotic sting gauge for it? And besides, 08s were rather common in the 70ies, you could get them everywhere and only recently they have disappeared from most shop shelves. The good thing: Fender still makes them, and who know, maybe this artice will help that they never will discontinue them 🙂

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Mark Knopfler gear, MK guitar style and licks

Mark Knopfler’s Ernie Ball Volume Pedal – and how I use mine

Mark Knopfler has used a volume pedal almost since the very first beginning of his career. He does not only use it to adjust the overall level, but also for his characteristic volume swells that make a note fade in just like a violin. In short, he hits the note with the pedal all the way back to remove the attack, then presses it down to fade in the note.

For the first years he used a Morley volume pedal, but later he changed to a model by Ernie Ball. This is common knowledge that can be found everywhere in the internet.

I bought one of these Ernie Ball pedals many years ago. However, I found out that mine basically does what it is supoosed to do, but in detail there seem to be some differences to the way Knopfler’s pedal works. Over the years I had some good opportunities to watch him operating the pedal on stage, and I noticed that he often takes volume back to let’s say 70 – 80 % of the pedal way (100% = all the way down, full volume), and the volume of the guitar becomes slightly lower (maybe also 70 – 80% volume).
When I set mine to 70 or 80%, the volume is considerably lower, maybe just 50%. In other words, mine changes the volume quite a lot as soon as you take it back just a bit. This makes it rather hard to set the volume to the desired level, one fraction of an inch too much and it is too low.

I also noticed that he can create very ‘fast’ volume swells easily, which means the attack is filtered out but the note comes in quickly. When I do it, the volume comes in slowly, I have to press it down a rather long way – and very fast – until the note really cuts through.

It seems that the poti in Knopfler’s pedal behaves differently than in mine. The behaviour of a poti can be displayed as a curve, see this diagram:

Mine behaves like the blue curve (comes in slowly while the last inch of the pedal way changes a lot) whereas Mark’s rather does the opposite (red curve).

I found the solution in an interview with Mark’s guitar tech Glenn Saggers. He said that Mark is only happy with a particular poti that Ernie Ball once used, but which is not installed in later models anymore (some recent models allow you to change this curve by the way). They even gathered a supply of that old potis in case it worns out and must be replaced.

I later tried a second and even a third Ernie Ball pedal, but all of them had the same curve as mine.

One day I accidentally found a solution that works for me, without having to buy a new poti or to spend any cent at all (and I admit I had no idea where to get such a poti). I swapped the input and the output jack because I accidentally plugged the guitar cable into the amp jack (output) of the pedal and the cable to the amp into the guitar input jack. And voila, it behaved exactly as I want it to do. 🙂

There is one side effect of this which I have to mention. This way the pedal swallows some treble end when not pressed completely down (all potis do so but this way the effect is a bit extremer). However, this is no problem for me since the softer tone fits nicely to low volume, while full volume cuts a bit more. If you use one of these and have the same problems, try it out and let us know what you think about it.

Update: I recently found out how to modify all those Ernie Ball pedals with the wrong curve (basically all after the mid 80ies).

Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear, Vintage guitars

Anything better than a red Schecter Strat? – Yes, two of them.

Today something about one of Mark Knopfler most famous guitars …

In 1980 Mark Knopfler started to play a red Schecter Strat on stage instead of the red Fenders he played before. Everyone knows this guitar – it was the guitar on the Alchemy live CD/video, on Live Aid, and on countless other TV concerts from the 80ies or 90ies. He still owns this guitar and uses it occasionally these days.

However, rather overlooked is that there was a second red Schecter, one that looks almost identically to the first one. On stage it was played by rhythm guitarist Hal Lindes, e.g. on ‘Once upon a time in the west’ on Alchemy. I think that this guitar did not belong to Hal Lindes but to Mark Knopfler as well (possibly the blue Schecter that Hal Lindes played, too, while Lindes’ white ’59 Fender Strat definitely was his.)

Two red Schecter Strats (middle), Mark’s main axe is the
one with white pick-ups, the second one has black PUs.
Left and right are the two red Fender Strats, far left the
sunburst Tele Custom featured in the last post.

All these Schecters – the ones mentioned so far plus a black Telecaster and a sunburst Strat – were bought at Rudy’s Music Stop in New York in 1980 (the red Telecaster of Walk of Life and the white Schecter Strat were later acquisitions).

There is only one hint (the interview quoted below) that the 2nd red Schecter was Knopfler’s but I think it was likely that he ordered all of them together. This interview was from Guitar Player magazine in 1984:

GP: Are your guitars heavily modified?

MK: Not really. One Schecter has Seymour Duncan Vintage pickups, and another red one has heavier Seymour Strat pickups in it.

We know that Knopfler soon (early 1981) replaced the original Schecter F500T pick-ups, note  the white PU covers from then on. These replacement PUs had staggered magnet poles (the Schecter PUs were flat) and are probably the mentioned “Seymour Duncan Vintage pickups”. I guess “another red one” is the 2nd red Strat (theoretically the red Schecter Telecaster of Walk of Life fame is another possibility ). See the following picture of that 2nd Strat and note the staggered magnet poles:

Hal Lindes playing that 2nd red Schecter Strat

So we have Vintage Seymour Duncans on #1, and heavier on #2. I remember exactly that unlike today Seymour Duncan’s product range was rather straightforward in 1981 –  five models called SSL 1 – 5. These were:

SSL 1 : vintage Strat replica, staggered Alnico 5 magnets

SSL 2: like SSL 1 but with Alnico 2 magnets

SSL 3: hot wound, flat poles

SSL 4: quarter inch magnets, flat poles (similar to the Schecter F500T)

SSL 5: like SSL 1, but hotter wound

The SSL 1 was by far the most common of these, and the SSL 5 was heavier but looked the same. For these reasons I claimed on my vintage Dire Straits Guitar Page that they were SSL 1 / 5 but there is no direct evidence for this (later there were Alnico Pros on #1 but these were not availabe in the early 80ies). But who knows, maybe he has SSL 2 in #1, or maybe everything is different from what we think.

Easy stuff for beginners, Guitar in general, Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear, MK guitar style and licks, Vintage guitars

High-G Tuning

A rather strange tuning that seems to be part of any Mark Knopfler concert these days is the high-G tuning. Mark Knopfler owns a beautiful sunburst Telecaster Custom – probably a ’67 that was originally played by his brother David with Dire Straits, more on this guitar in a future post. These days (not in the past) this guitar seems to be dedicated to the high-g tuning.

So, what is it? In short: high-g simply means that the g-string is tuned up one octave, all other strings are standard tuning. For obvious reasons the g-string must be a rather thin gauge (I take a 008), otherwise the tension would break the string immediately.

If you look closely you can easily spot that thin g-string, pictures courtesy of Guy Fletcher

On stage, this guitar is played by keyboarder Guy Fletcher on the song ‘Wye Aye Man’, but it seems it was used on some studio recordings as well (besides Wye Aye Man, e.g. for the rhythm guitar on the song ‘Boom like that’, the one that comes in at 0:43 min and only hits each chord once, possibly on some more songs).

The nice thing about this tuning is that you don’t have to learn new ways to fret chords because the g-string is still tuned to g, only one octave higher, so everything remains as it is. You can fret each chord as you are used to, only the sound changes, a rather high note is added. Of course things go wrong as soon as you try to play lead with this tuning because the g-string is now the highest note.

Basically, the idea of this comes from the so-called Nashville tuning which is the tuning you get when you use only the octave strings of a 12-string set (the high e and b strings remain, all other strings are the thin octave strings,  tuned one octave higher than the normal strings). This tuning is often used to add rhythm guitars with a rather “light” sound, less bass, but rich treble end.

Try it out, maybe on a spare guitar, it is a fresh sound and a lot of fun at almost no costs.

To finish, here is a video clip of ‘Boom like that’ with that sunburst Tele (played by Paul Brady, promo from Irish TV)

Easy stuff for beginners, MK guitar style and licks

A plumber’s C chord

What do you think is the most important chord for the average guitar player? Well, presumably it is a rather simple, basic chord that is played often in all kind of tunes. So probably a ‘normal’ major chord, something like C or D.

Even a beginner quickly learns that there are many ways to play even something simple as a C chord. The first version you learn is probably the one that uses open strings, see the picture.

While this one is a favourite of all folk players, the most important version for rock is possibly the chord played at the 3rd fret position. In chord books you will find something like this:

This chord is normally played as barre chord which looks like one of these:

You will soon discover that for the Mark Knopfler playing style where you often switch from chords to fills or to a solo, the barre chords pictured above do not work very well because you  have to move your left wrist quite a lot This is because when playing lead Knopfler holds the neck “just like a plumber holds a hammer” (quote Mark Knopfler) while a classical guitar player holds the neck with the thumb at the backside of the neck /see pictures above), so the wrist is at a different position, much lower so that barre chords become easy.

The way to play a C chord in a “plumber’s way” would look like this as a diagram:

or like this on a photo:

The index finger frets the a string, the pinky the d,g, and b strings, middle and ring finger do nothing, or (as in this picture) the ring finger might help to keep the strings down so that less force is required for the pinky. Compare it e.g. with the following picture showing Knopfler playing this C chord in ‘Money for Nothing’ (from the Live Aid concert, 1985):

And why do you think a plumber holds a hammer the way he does? The answer is obvious: because he has to work with it and this is the way it works best. The same is true for the guitar: hold the neck like a plumber, this is the natural way to do it, forget about the snobbish attitude and about guitar teachers who still think barre chords are what makes “good technique”.

Guitar in general, Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear, Vintage guitars

Secrets of Vintage Guitars: Brazilian Rosewood

Fans of vintage guitars normally claim that vintage guitars sound better than new ones. Why? Some say because the wood is old and dry, or it resonates better with the time a guitar is played.

Others say that some parts were in detail different than they are today. Some of this is vodoo, but there are in fact a few real differences. One of these is the kind of wood used for fingerboards: vintage Fenders mostly had Brazilian rosewood (botanical name: dalberia nigra),  a wood – as the name suggest – from the tropical rainforests. Brazilian rosewood is protected by strict environmental laws these days, it cannot be legally obtained since 1992. No cutting of trees, no export or import. For this reason it is almost impossible to get, and also extremely expensive. New guitars come with Indian rosewood instead (dalberia latifolia, it grows on plantations) , or from some other parts of the world like Madagascar.

Some specs of Brazilian rosewood like average density or hardness are in fact different than for Indian rosewood, also the look is slightly different. As far as colour is concerned, both can be almost black or rather brown, from lighter brown over redish brown to purple brown. Brazilian rosewood can feature a highly figured grain, and  often has tiny holes (I have heard these are in fact wurmholes). Besides it is said it has a typical sweet smell but since I can’t smell anything like this on a guitar, I guess this is rather when working with the wood.

Brazilian rosewood on a ’62 Stratocaster. Vintage guitars often have imprintsfrom
the fingernails where these rest when playing frequent chords like E or Am.

Indian rosewood can look very similar.

Brazilian rosewood often has an attractive grain .

Indian rosewood

Brazilian rosewood is said to sound a bit brighter but nevertheless warm. To make one thing clear: the tonal differences are very subtle, and both kinds of wood can sound fantastic. If you google for ‘brazilian + Indian + rosewood’ you will find hundreds of pages or discussion from guitar forums about these differences.

What is my personal opinion: I have played many guitars with Brazilian rosewood. The problem is as always that you will never have two guitar that are identical with the exception of one single feature like the type of rosewood (and nobody would replace his fingerboard to make an A/B comparision obviously). Nevertheless, I got the feeling that the ones with Brazilian rosewood had something in common that is missing with Indian rosewood. A subtle difference, but still there. Or I am simply wrong, who knows (now the experts can chime in).

Mark Knopfler’s ’61 Strat has Brazilian rosewood – Fender changed only gradually to Indian rosewood sometime between the late 60ies and early 70ies. His Pensa Suhr from late Dire Straits days also has Brazilian rosewood, I am not sure about his later Pensas (luthiers often still have small supplies of it, their ‘personal treasure’), the Signature Strats haven’t.

Guitar in general, Mark Knopfler gear, Misc, Misc, MK guitar style and licks

Audio sample from Hamburg 78 (speed corrected)

Today I messed around with an audio player plug-in for WordPress (the software used to create this blog). In some other post I wrote something about the Hamburg concert (Musikhalle, Hamburg, Germany, Oct. 28, 1978) and mentioned that I slowed it down to the original speed (the concert around in some fan hubs or on torrent trackers runs almost ridiculously fast), so I added the audio player with a sample song from this legendary concert. See the original post (click here), I added the audio player below the pictures (so you have something to look at while listening).

The song I selected is Lions. Note how the sound changes when Mark switches between bridge and middle pick-ups to middle pick-up for the solos. He used the ’61 red Strat with the rosewood neck (#68354) on probably all concerts in late 78 (see this post for more about this).

Enjoy!

Guitar in general, Misc, MK guitar style and licks, Understanding music

Zen and the art of playing the guitar

Zen – a word sometimes heard, but only rarely explained. Those who practice Zen say that “Zen is what cannot be explained” – not really helpful. So what is it, what does it have to do with art, and what with playing the guitar?

Basically Zen is a Japanese form of Buddhism. It is not a religion – you don’t have to believe in any gods or in Buddha. Instead it has something to do with a particular state of mind. It is this state of mind that is the ultimate aim – it is finally the way to what Buddhists call enlightenment.

Take a look at the following three pictures that all have to do with Zen.

MK picture courtesy of lukas

So, what do these have in common? The Zen mind is characterized by clearness, simplicity, and mindfulness. The monks who work in a Zen garden do this to practice concentration, combined with a certain kind of relaxation. They concentrate on all the details in their garden, on the sand, on those tiny pebbles, on the plants. Concentration is also essential for the sword fighter, one tiny moment of unawareness might result in his death in a fight. And the guitar player – not all, but at least the one pictured here 😉 – performs a piece of art where also each tiny detail matters, everything is important: each single note can be made to sound perfect by concentration, the attack matters, he volume, the vibrato, the song itself of course, simply everything.

Just like the Zen garden must not look overcrowded but open and simple instead, a piece of music should be clearly structured and should have enough open space, so better leave out this killer guitar solo, leave out that complex rhythm fill, leave out things that are not required and disturb the peaceful flow of the music.

Zen focusses on the things “as they are” and concentration is the gate to being aware of the world around you. Never think about the past, which is over anyway, never think about the future, which is totally open and outside your control. Instead live in the now, in the very moment.

One essential way to build up such concentration is meditation. Meditation basically combines relaxation and concentration to enter a different state of mind. All Zen masters practised meditation for thousands of hours in their life. What about our guitar player? Am I to say he also meditated a lot in his life? Well, there are thousand different kinds of meditation: pay attention to your breathing, pay attention to your interior, or to each step you do when walking slowly around, to everything around you, to the right way of standing and holding a sword, or to sit for hours and play the guitar. It is the concentration, always combined with relaxation, that matters. And yes, practicing your guitar in a particular way can be regarded as meditation, and I am sure it can have similar results as conventional sitting meditation.

Modern psychologist have a new term for this state of mind, they call it “flow”. Doing some kinds of work can under certain circumstances lead to this flow. You feel one with the world around you, your thoughts stay in the focus on what you are doing, and you feel perfectly happy.

The next time you practice your guitar you might also concentrate on things you normally are not aware of, like your body posture (very important for your energy flow and thus for your ability to concentrate), your breathing, (even and deep breathing leads to relaxation which is required for more concentration) or technical things like the perfect vibrato, more dynamics and attack control, and not on things like getting faster or louder.

Keeping up the concentration level seems to be very hard at first, so you might say it is impossible to be aware of all these things all the time. However, you might find out that the longer you concentrate, the easier it suddenly becomes to keep up concentration so it is definitely worth the effort and does not only help you to play guitar better but also to live a happier life. So …

Guitar in general, Misc, MK guitar style and licks, Understanding music

Recommended listening: Amazing Rhythm Aces – “The End is not in Sight”

Whenever people are listed who influenced Mark Knopfler to come up with that Dire Straits sound, you more or less will find the same names: J.J. Cale, Bob Dylan, Hank Marvin, Ry Cooder, Eric Clapton, sometimes Django Reinhardt or Richard Thompson, etc. I remember that I was surprised to hear another name, a band that I had never heard of before. This was in the “Unauthorized Mark Knopfler Biography” by Myles Palmer.

Palmer wrote a book about Mark Knopfler based on interviews with all kind of people who used to know Knopfler before Dire Straits or around the time they started, even people like his school teachers or work mates. I think it was Dave Pask, the lead singer of the Cafe Racers, the band Mark Knopfler played in just before Dire Straits, who mentioned how enthusiastic Mark was about the Amazing Rhythm Aces, an American band that sounded like a mix between Lynnard Skynnard (‘Sweet Home Alabama’) and country roots.

Dave Pask was quoted: ‘Basically, the sound comes from the Amazing Rhythm Aces’ lead guitarist Barry “Byrd” Burton,, and J.J. Cale, who he was listening to a lot of the time. […] There is a song he was influenced by called “The End is not in sight”. Listen to the guitar playing on that.’

This song is from the band’s second album called “Too stuffed to jump”, and in fact it is an absolutely great song. You can hear it here on youtube:

The guitar solo reminds me of things like Down to the Waterline. The melody itself has not much in common, but both the chord changes (A and E compared to G and Bm; note that Bm is the minor chord to D, and G and D would be the same one note lower), and the way the solo takes over after the verse create a similar feel. The first song of that album – “Typical American Boy” – is also stunning.

If you like the song and want it in better than youtube quality, you will find the album on a remastered CD at Amazon. The better buy seems to be the ‘two albums on one CD’ version at the same price which you can directly order at Amazon from here (simply click on the link for your country to get it from your local Amazon):

Amazon.com————Amazon.co.uk———–Amazon.de

If you are inetersted in the Myles Palmer book (it is reviewed a bit controversial, nevertheless it contains a lot of exclusive information), you can still get it at Amazon as well. Unfortunately it seems to be very rare and is partly rather expensive there:

Amazon.com————Amazon.co.uk———–Amazon.de